A liquid crystal display is utilized for various uses such as portable telephones, monitors, televisions, and the like while making use of characteristics thereof such as light weight, thin type, low power consumption, and the like. In recent years, for example, with regard to a liquid crystal display used for televisions, upsizing of the screen has rapidly progressed. For example, a liquid crystal television having a diagonal screen of 65 inches has been put to practical use. Under such a market trend, upsizing of an optical film utilized for the liquid crystal display has been urgent business.
A polarizer is known as one of the optical film utilized for the liquid crystal display. This polarizer is typically produced in such a manner that a rolled polyvinyl alcohol film is dyed with a dichroic material and is uniaxially drawn in a longitudinal direction. With regard to such a polarizer, it is generally conceived that the film with higher draw ratio is more excellent in optical property. Such a polarizer is disclosed in Patent Document 1.
However, when draw ratio is increased for obtaining a polarizer with high polarizing performance, effective width of the polarizer is narrowed by necking. Thus, it is difficult to obtain a polarizer appropriate for the above large-sized display.
Also, the liquid crystal display is low in contrast ratio in oblique directions. An optical film, in which a polarizer and a birefringent film are laminated, is used for improving this.
However, a liquid crystal display capable of further increasing contrast ratio thereof and displaying characters or screen images photographically in the oblique direction is demanded in the market.    Patent Document 1: JP-A-2004-341515